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Adventures in Reading 2019
2019 was a challenging year—deaths, health scares, creative dysfunction—but as ever, reading sustained me. I finally read Juan Rulfo‘s classic Pedro Páramo—one of those books that makes me wonder why I waited so long. It’s a visceral, phantasmagorical novel with all the psychic force of Greek tragedy. I knew that it is widely considered the first fully-realized instance of magical realism, and I can see how unlikely it would be for us to have One Hundred Years of Solitude without Rulfo’s influence.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: John Brandi
No Ship Will Ever Take You Away From Yourself —Cavafy Sunrise through glazed reeds. Abyss washed clean by fathoms of mist. Halfway around the world I wake under a cover too thin, finish a poem, fill the pen. Teapot nods its lid. High crags shine in warm breeze. Who is this man working through words to find stance in the journey? A foot taps up and down under the table. A sudden gust turns the page. Empty, it holds spring sunlight.Read More
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Immodestly Noted
Order on Amazon Succinct The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems edited by Jonathan Greene and Robert West Broadstone Books 418 Ann Street Frankfort, Kentucky 40601-1929 My contributor’s copies came in the mail yesterday, and oh my—what are the odds that an off-the-main-map poet like me would find himself among such company? Somewhere between Anonymous and Zukofsky, within hailing distance of Archilochus, Arnold, Brandi, Bunting, Heaney, Kinnell, Niedecker, Rosenow, Villon, three Williamses (Jonathan, Miller, and William Carlos), and yes, Willie Yeats. This gave me a strange sense of elation, enhanced by the beauty of the physical book itself.Read More
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Brief Hiatus…
I’m laying low for a few days, visiting family in Eugene, where today I picked up two journey books: John Brandi’s Diary from a Journey to the Middle of the World and Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North; I lost the latter, fittingly enough, in a move many years ago, and with Brandi’s book in hand it just seemed the right time to replace that long lost copy.Read More
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Weeding the Cosmos…
I recently happened upon this fine collection of haiku by John Brandi, vintage 1994.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
